Nikki Haley has sharpened her rhetoric against former President Donald Trump, although she has left the most direct attacks to her high-profile surrogate, Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), in the final days ahead of New Hampshire’s primaries.
Even as Trump maintains a large lead in the polls, the former U.N. ambassador has routinely played it safe, a strategy that has kept her in the running in the primary so far.
On the campaign trail, she rarely deviates from her stump speech, has eliminated the question and answer sessions with voters from some of her campaign events, and rarely takes questions or gaggles with reporters. She’s also been treading lightly to win over voters who are anti-Trump while also avoiding alienating those who supported the former president but are considering an alternative.
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“If you think Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, don’t sit on your couch and not participate; you gotta go vote,” Sununu said to voters in his opening remarks ahead of Haley’s campaign stop in Manchester on Friday night. “Did you know since 2016, here in New Hampshire, federal races, Republicans are 0 for 11 with Donald Trump at the top? I am sick of that.”
“Republicans are tired of losing, we are tired of losers, we’re tired of Donald Trump,” Sununu added before bringing Haley onstage.
The former South Carolina governor didn’t address the former president until about seven minutes into her stump speech, when she seemed to adlib a bit to defend herself from attacks Trump has been lobbing her way regarding her stance on immigration. In recent weeks, Trump’s super PAC has been airing ads accusing Haley of opposing the former president’s border wall. The ad ends with the line “Nikki Haley: too weak, too liberal to fix the border.”
“When I was governor, we passed one of the — against what Donald Trump is saying on TV — we passed one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country,” Haley said, touting a law that was passed when she was governor that requires proof of U.S. citizenship for a person caught committing a crime or pulled over in a car by law enforcement. The Department of Justice sued the state over the law.
The GOP front-runner was not mentioned until about 16 minutes later, when Haley was more direct with her criticism, claiming “chaos follows” the former president, a line she’s been repeating for months. Only until recently has she hit Trump a bit harder when she accuses him of throwing a “temper tantrum.”
“What I’ve seen is through these temper tantrums, Donald Trump is telling a whole lot of lies,” Haley said to voters Friday.
After his landslide win in Iowa, Trump has refocused his attention on Haley, who poses the biggest threat to his large lead in the Granite State. The former U.N. ambassador has spoken more freely about her criticism of the former president when taking questions from reporters.
“I’ll let people decide what he means by his attacks; look, clearly, he’s insecure. If he goes and does these temper tantrums, if he goes and spending millions of dollars on TV, he’s insecure; he knows something is wrong,” Haley said during a press gaggle on Friday night. “I don’t sit here and worry about if it’s personal or what he means by it.”
Haley made no mention of news that Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) endorsed Trump on Friday, a blow to the former South Carolina governor, who appointed Scott to the Senate. However, Sanunu told reporters the endorsement “didn’t matter.”
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“Let’s be clear: Tim Scott only has a job because of Nikki Haley. So, let’s start there,” Sununu said. “U.S. senators don’t like to be held accountable. They know Trump will completely fall and cater to them. Haley wants to hold the U.S. Senate accountable.”